Nokia Lumia 920 vs. HTC Windows Phone 8X

January 18, 2013

Transcript

What's up, PrizeFight fans?
I'm Brian Tong.
We haven't shown Windows phone to love yet, but this battle is all about the new kid on the block.
It's a PrizeFight punchout between Nokia's Lumia 920 and HTC's Windows Phone 8X.
Our judges for this fight, our senior editor Brian "Bad Boy" Bennett, senior editor Jessica "The People's" Dolcourt and you know who,
"Rear Landing" Tong.
Now we'll take all 3 judges' scores and average them out to the nearest 10th each round.
The final PrizeFight score will be an average of all rounds using the same system.
It's a 5-round throwdown.
Round 1 is design.
The Nokia Lumia 920 brings a retro poppy art feeling with its unique body shape and design and its 4.5-inch 332 pixel per inch display that pops.
But this is a surprisingly thick phone when you hold it with a slippery
surface and a heavy weight.
Now HTC's Windows phone 8X brings a much sleeker and slimmer profile with its smaller 4.3-inch screen but makes up for it with a slightly higher 342 pixels per inch display.
Its curved backside has a soft touch feel to it, and it's also more comfortable to hold.
The Lumia 920 might have a little more personality, but we're giving the HTC 8X a 4.7 and the 920 a 4. Next round is controls and user interface.
Both phones bring a similar layout with volume and camera buttons in the same location.
Now the Lumia 920 decided to put its power button in the center on the side which can feel a little odd since it's on the same side as the volume rocker.
Now we preferred the power button at the top on the HTC 8X.
Both phones bring the same Windows phone 8 software with its smooth and modern tile interface that I'm a big fan of, and its horizontal screens when you're inside of apps, plus you'll also have the ability to customize the size of
tiles and then pin them to your home screen.
Now don't knock it if you haven't tried it, but we're fans of the clean and refreshing Windows phone interface.
We're calling this round a tie at 4, and after averaging 2 rounds, the 8X leads 4.4 to 4. Next round is features.
This is really the round where the Lumia 920 separates itself from the HTC 8X.
Now Nokia brings the most advanced Windows phone 8 device to date with its wireless charging capabilities, a
high screen sensitivity feature that allows us to use the screen without any specialty glove and a glare-reducing screen filter that isn't just a gimmick, plus a suite of Nokia apps and services that add more value.
Now Windows Phone 8 brings Bing search that's easily accessible and can use your location, listen to music, or scan bar codes for results, but as an operating system, Windows phone still has to play some catch-up with the absences of a default voice navigation, a camera panorama, and really
more than anything is missing some of the top apps that you'll find on other platforms.
It's the Nokia Lumia 920 that really brings more features to the table, and it gets a 5 and the HTC Windows phone 8X gets a 4. Round 4 is web browsing and multimedia.
You'll see a theme here but it's Nokia that really tries to bring something more than the basic Windows phone experience.
Web browsing is exactly the same with tab browsing and the ability to pin your favorite sites of the homepage.
And the Windows
phone store offers apps, games, and music, but the video selection is a little sparse.
Now the HTC 8X brings Beats audio enhancement technology, but the Lumia 920 brings better camera quality when comparing similar camera shots, its larger screen and glare-reduction filter makes a difference, and it's Nokia music app that catches songs for offline listening and the Nokia Drive app give it the edge here.
The Lumia 920 gets a 5 and the HTC 8X gets a 4.
So after averaging 4 rounds, Nokia is taking the lead after trailing the final round that decides it all is call quality and performance.
Both of these phones bring the same processor, operating system, and 4G LTE connectivity, and we were happy with the snappy responsiveness of the operating system.
Now the Lumia 920 also brings 32 gigs of storage for 99 dollars compared to the HTC 8X with 16 gigs of internal storage for 199 dollars.
Call quality always varies
depending on multiple conditions, but audio quality was solid for both phones.
So in the final round, we're giving Nokia the edge one more time with a 4.3 and the 8X a 4. So let's average out all 5 rounds and in a battle where the HTC Windows phone 8X jumped to an early lead, the Nokia Lumia 920 came back strong could not be stopped and takes this PrizeFight 4.5, to 4.2, and is your PrizeFight winner.
Windows phone continues to get better and better and you guys can bet 2013 will be a make-it or break-it year.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching.
We'll catch you guys next time for another PrizeFight.